U.S. court dismisses Obinwanne Okeke’s appeal, to serve jail term

29 Jul U.S. court dismisses Obinwanne Okeke’s appeal, to serve jail term

Obinwanne Okeke, widely known as Invictus Obi, has lost the appeal he filed against his years’ imprisonment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal after it was voluntarily withdrawn by the convict.

The 33-year-old Nigerian, who was arrested in the U.S. on August 6, 2019, had pleaded guilty to the offence of conspiracy to commit wire fraud last year June.

U.S. authorities said victims lost nearly $11million to the large-scale fraud perpetrated through global business email and computer hacking schemes between 2015 and 2019.

Okeke, formerly celebrated internationally as a successful young African entrepreneur, was sentenced to 120 months’ imprisonment by a court in the Eastern District of Virginia on February 16.

In a “motion to withdraw appeal” he filed on July 16, Okeke said he took the decision to terminate the appeal after consulting with his lawyer “both by phone and email.

He stated in the motion personally signed by him that doing so “is in his best interest”.

The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal on the same date the motion for its withdrawal was filed by the appellant.

Mr Okeke will, therefore, continue serving his sentence at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail, Suffolk, in Virginia.

He had spent 19 months in detention from the time of his arrest in August 2019 till  February 16when he was sentenced.